Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 11, 2025
Near to them they could discern, in the clear atmosphere, the spires and towers of the county town, where Black Thompson, who had tempted him on these hills, was now imprisoned for many years; and below, though hidden from their sight, was Botfield and the cinder-hill cabin.
And if father's hated thee, thee canst save him now. 'Ay, said Tim, 'Bess is right; there's not a mother's son in Botfield to swear agen them for the master's sake. If he didn't see them, nor Miss Anne, why need we know? I'll soon baffle the justice, I promise ye. It's a rare chance to forgive Black Thompson, anyhow. 'Bess and Tim, answered Stephen, in great distress, 'I can't do it.
It would be no very easy task to describe how unhappy Stephen was when, from day to day, he saw Martha's pleasant sisterly ways change into a rude and careless harshness, and her thrifty, cleanly habits give place to the dirty extravagance of the collier-folk at Botfield.
But it was not, generally known that the constables from Longville and Botfield had contrived to arrest Black Thompson and Davies in the midst of the confusion, and had quietly taken them off to the jail at Longville. When the daylight grew strong, it shone upon a smouldering mass of ruins, and heaps of broken furniture piled upon the down-trodden grass.
'And I've been thinking, Stephen, added Thomas Wyley, who sat at a high desk checking the accounts, 'that, as you seem set against being separated, instead of taking your grandfather into the House, I'd get him two shillings a week allowed him out of it; and that would pay the rent of a nice two-roomed cottage down in Botfield, close to your work. Come, that would make all of you comfortable.
She could never bear to go near them, or speak to them again, since they had sworn against her father; and had not he been good to them when Stephen was ill, often sparing her to watch with Martha, as well as helping to make up his wages? If this was their religion, she did not care to have it; for nobody else in Botfield would have done the same.
Botfield Hall was a large, half-timbered farmhouse, with a gabled roof, part of which was made of thatch and the rest of tiles. It stood quite alone, at a little distance from the works, on the other side of them to that where the village was built. The window-casements were framed of stone; and the outer doors were of thick, solid oak, studded with large-headed iron nails.
After throwing a shawl over her head, she started off for Longville with the swiftness of a hare; and was soon past the engine-house, and threading her way cautiously through Botfield, where she dreaded to be discovered as she passed the lighted windows, or across the gleam of some open door.
Master doesn't want to be hard upon you; and he says, if you've no place to turn in to, you may go to the old cabin on the upper cinder-hill, till there's a cottage empty in Botfield; and we'll help thee to move the things at wunst. We're to get the roof off and the walls down afore nightfall. 'Grandfather and little Nan! screamed Martha; 'get into the house this minute!
'There is nothing now to prevent you beginning to know it, continued Miss Anne. 'Listen: as Stephen cannot come to me at Botfield, you shall meet me in the Red Gravel Pit at nine o'clock on a Sunday morning as long as the summer lasts, and I will teach you all. Bring little Nan with you, Stephen.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking